This was so fucking cool to watch, from an engineering perspective observing the secondary propellant ignite to boost its speed to intercept the target, as well as an internet video watcher seeing the camera person capturing the entire scenario with perfect tracking and centering of the subject (rocket)
Damn wonder how many g’s were pulled in that turn
That missile knows where it is and where it isn’t that’s for fuckin sure
Radar guided via eletro optic signal, they don’t know much but the ground does. The whole point is the missile is very cheap for a missile and all the fun stuff is ground based inside of the protective sphere of influence.
It is very expensive compared to projectiles.
The Iron Dome works wonders for intercepting dumb rockets which are on a calculable set trajectory. They are not guided with electro-optic but using a simple signal to tell the rocket where to be at what time. Dumb rockets are much, much cheaper to produce than guided missiles.
Iron Dome’s fatal flaw is when a projectile does not follow the path of the image above but changes trajectory mid-air. E.G another guided missile. It is designed to stop Hamas style fire-and-forget rockets. It cannot deal with projectiles rapidly changing trajectory.
Compared to ciws, cram, phalanx it’s pretty expensive sure but it’s also less vulnerable to saturation by dumb weapons than any of those others.
Dumb saturation is the Iron Dome’s nemesis. Even Hamas managed to overwhelm it with a comparatively “small” amount of rockets on October 7.
Once the batteries are empty all the enemy rockets are going to land.
Ciws no matter how good so long as it’s a single gun can only intercept a single target at a time. Ciws saturation is literally more than one.
A single iron dome launcher can intercept 20 from any launcher and track and engage 36 from any one radar iirc.
Low angle saturation is the weakness of any rocket/artillery interceptor, and depletion issues go the same with any weapon system.
Huh, hadn’t thought about that capability, but it does make a ton of sense if the first target was successfully serviced (or no longer needs servicing). No need to waste an interceptor by launching another for target #2.
Or if the radar and guidance system decides another incoming threat is more important to take out. Like if the tracking system calculates the probable hit location of the new target to be a school/hospital/commandopost etc.
Still impressive to see in action.
Makes sense, after all, the IDF are experts at calculating missile trajectories involving schools
“Sike!”
